Motzaei Rosh Hashana -- I spent Yom Tov with my daughter, Faigie, and her seven very gorgeous children. Davening, eating, reading, playing with the kids, it was a very special time for all of us. As I was leaving, something happened that really brought home the meaning of the days.

 
My daughter's neighbor has a little girl who is the same age as my eight year old granddaughter. She has cancer that has spread to the brain. To put it very bluntly, this sweet child, who spends hours on the stairwell trading stickers with her friends, or outside on the sidewalk, jumping rope, is, according to the doctors, dying of cancer.

 

Motzaei Rosh Hashana, as I was running to catch the bus (that never came!) a van stopped in front of my daughter's apartment building, and some fifteen yeshiva bachurim, all dressed in black suits and white shirts, jumped out. From the back of the van they started pulling out music equipment – a keyboard, a set of drums, a set of amplifiers, and a large suitcase filled with clown costumes, puppets, and anything that would make a sweet little girl, dying of cancer, laugh.

 

My daughter told me that they've come many times in the last few months. "Each time they come," she says, "the entire building comes down to dance with them."

 
How beautiful, yet how sad